Tasty Tuesday: Peanut Butter Cream Pie

I must be on a peanut butter and chocolate kick. Last week, we made these. And now we have a peanut butter pie. Maybe next week we can stray away from the super rich desserts. 

Maybe not.

Ingredients:

8 ounces chocolate cookies                                  1 cup creamy-style peanut butter

4 tablespoons butter, melted                                 1 cup confectioner's sugar

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips                   1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup chopped peanuts                                      1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup heavy cream                                                1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

8 ounces cream cheese

Directions:

1. Add the cookies to the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs.  Combine melted butter and cookie crumbs in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to mix well.  Press mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave.  Pour over bottom of cookie crust and spread to the edges using an off-set spatula.  Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the melted chocolate. Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

3. Pour the heavy cream into a bowl and beat until stiff peaks form.  Store in refrigerator until ready to use.  Place the cream cheese and peanut butter in a deep bowl.  Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in the confectioner's sugar.  Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Increase speed to medium and beat until all the ingredients are combined and filling is smooth.

4. Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the filling mixture.  Fold in the remaining whipped cream.  Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan. Garnish as desired. Refrigerate for three hours or overnight before serving.

I started with chocolate sandwich cookies and scraped the cream filling out using a butter knife. Good thing I had plenty of helpers to eat all that cream! Zac was in heaven since that's all that he eats of the cookie anyway.

We then tossed the cookie halves into the food processor and had perfect crumbs in less than thirty seconds. Afterwards, we dropped in the peanuts to chop those as well.

If you'd like to spread the chocolate to the edges, like the recipes states, add some heavy cream or milk to get it to a spreadable consistency. Otherwise, you'll have glops of unspreadable chocolate that sticks to the cookie crumb crust and breaks it up as you try to spread it. The sad thing is that I knew that, but was feeling a little lazy and since the recipe didn't call for it . . . I ended up with glops of chocolate.  Honestly though, I would leave that chocolate layer right out. The pie is incredibly rich and certainly doesn't need it. And I like rich.

As soon as Zachy saw the mixer on the counter, he ran right over and stood by my side. The cream from the sandwich cookies was long forgotten. He had his eyes on the whipped cream. Sad thing was that it was unsweetened and not nearly as yummy as what he normally experiences from the beater. Not to worry, big brother was right there to finish it off.

The next few steps were all about measuring, beating, dumping, mixing, folding. Pretty self explanatory.

Then I dumped the deliciousness (and yes, of course I tried it!) into the prepared crust, topped it with some melted chocolate (with milk this time!) and placed it in the fridge overnight. 

Hours later, an innocent child opened the refrigerator to get a snack, something healthy like yogurt. Instead, his eyes fell upon the finished pie, now decorated with melted chocolate. All thoughts of yogurt were forgotten. His healthy snack was replaced with a piece of peanut butter pie. 

Can you blame him?

This pie is not meant for photographing. 

But it's certainly meant for enjoying. The kids informed me over and over again just how good it was. They also made statements of how chocolatey and peanut-buttery it was. No one finished his small piece - not even Zac!  Jake kept telling me that he was going to save the rest of his for later. Every time, just as I was putting it back in the fridge, he was right there saying, "Welllll, maybe I have a little more room in my tummy."

I was leery of the peanuts under the filling since we're not big fans of things with nuts. It needs them though. They add that little bit of crunch to an otherwise total creaminess. It's a lovely contrast.

Go ahead and join in the peanut butter and chocolate kick that we're on and make this pie!

Just make sure to have lots of loved ones nearby to help you eat it all.